Lit Hub has just released Book Marks, a book review aggregator which provides a grading system for books. At The Stranger, Rich Smith talks about what this means, grade inflation, and more:
The point of a book review isn’t to sell books or trick people into reading books. The point of a books review aggregator isn’t to sell books or trick people into reading books, either. If 99 percent of the books are getting A or B grades, then it could be the case that the state of American literature is pretty good! Or it could mean that those grades, over time, will become relative! We may come to learn that a ‘B’ at Book Marks is really a personal ‘D.’ If you only want to read the A+ books, well, the list of excellent books you can now choose from has dramatically shortened from something like ~100 to (currently) 4! Close your eyes, spin around, and point!
